Insomnia and Apologies

For some reason, i have not been able to sleep. It's driving me crazy. I wake up at 5:30, or 5, or this morning at 4:10 and cannot fall back asleep. And after about 30-40 minutes of lying there unable to go back to sleep I get up and figure that the quiet hours at the computer will probably be more productive than lying in bed. By the end of the day I am exhausted though. It's a cycle I can't seem to break lately.

I have found that apologizing to Salinda actually has been very helpful in mending our relationship. Sometimes it is as simple as saying "I'm sorry I didn't handle that better" if we've had a conflict. It seems to soften her a bit and allow for us to continue our dialogue.

Yesterday seemed to be teenage girl drama day. Salinda and I had an "altercation" in the morning, and Sadie and I in the evening. Salinda is overwhelmed with how busy she is this week. Several tests and wanting to earn extra money this week have her convinced her life is too stressful for her to survive. And Sadie has decided to "go out with" the one kid we know at school that we don't want her to spend time with. I"m sure that is exactly her motivation, but we want her to understand that.

Salinda has been doing so much better. She seems to be returning to the person that we used to know when we moved here. She wrote this essay for her Minnesota Grad Standards test and agreed to let me share it with you. I think you'll be encouraged as well.

There are many people in the world who have goals, weather it be a small goal such as not biting your fingernails or a big goal such as stopping an addiction. Do you have a goal? Well I have many goals as a young adolescent, but my number one goal is staying out of trouble and making a difference in my life.

About 18 months ago my family and I moved to a bigger city. Oh boy, was I in over my head. I came from a town of 5,000 people who were mostly white, and then I moved to a city of 50,000 people. I soon started hanging out with the wrong crowd and turning into someone I didn’t recognize. I soon started to rebel against my parents. I would do anything for my friends even if it were hurting the people that I loved and that loved me.

Then one night I did something that has had a huge effect on my life for several months and still has an effect. I was sent to juvenile detention and then to a group home. At the group home I didn’t feel like I learned anything, I already knew I had issues with adult authority. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. I ended up coming home after a couple months. With that I had to be on house arrest and serve thirty hours of community service. As a fifteen year old I now have a record, which I am not proud of at all.

I now respect my parents a whole lot more, and I can stand up to my peers. Today I am doing well. My grades continue to be good, and I’m not rebelling against my parents and for once I feel like I’m getting somewhere. I plan on going to a four-year college and being a parole officer or social worker so that I can make a difference in someone else’s life